ST. JOSEPH NEWS-PRESS: Opinion: EPA made right call on ‘waters’ rollback

In 2015, the Environment Protection Agency finalized a rule that allowed federal bureaucrats to come into our backyards and onto our farms to regulate any brook, stream or pond, no matter the size or even if it had water in it.

Known as “Waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, the Obama administration rewrote standing law to extend its authority onto farms and private property. One of the biggest things WOTUS did was remove the word “navigable” so the federal Clean Water Act could be applied to far more private property. The Obama Administration’s WOTUS rule represented everything people distrust and resent about the federal government.

From the day WOTUS was proposed, the outcry from farmers and landowners in North Missouri and across the country was loud and fierce. How could the Clean Water Act be extended to all bodies of water, regardless of where they were, what they were used for or if they even had water in them?

As a sixth-generation farmer, I found this to be a blatant abuse of our private property rights.

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